How to use Microsoft Agent in C#

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Introduction

Microsoft Agent is a technology used to add interactive animated characters to windows application or web page; these characters act according to the user input via speech recognition engine, and also they can speak and tell the user something via text-to-speech engine. Microsoft provides programmers four characters

• A-Peddy
• B-Genie
• C-Merlin
• D-Robby.

Each character has its own set of animation

Background

I’ve searched well so many sites for code that I can use MS agent to provide help to end user. After searching the C# books , I’ve found some nice code that helped me to create this simple Application . Hope it can help as a basic architecture.

Using the code

At first you should simply open VS.NET and then at the File menu click on New, Project. From the New Project Dialog Box, choose the Windows Application template project and name it WindowsApplication1 like shown below:

After you create the windows add a button to it and name it speak and add a RichTextBox and name it talk , you should add to it Microsoft Agent component , to do that click on the Customize toolbox from tool menu then the following Dialog will appear

Select Microsoft Agent control 2.0 and click ok. Now in your tool box at the end of it you will find a new item added to it “Microsoft Agent”. Drag this item and drop it in your application, after drop “Microsoft Agent” the .Net will generate a new object from type AxAgentObjects.AxAgent as the following

namespace WindowsApplication1
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Summary description for Form1.
    /// </summary>
    public class Form1 : System.Windows.Forms.Form
    {
           private AxAgentObjects.AxAgent axAgent1;
           /// <summary>
           /// Required designer variable.
           /// </summary>
           private System.ComponentModel.Container components = null;
 
           public Form1()
           {
                   //
                   // Required for Windows Form Designer support
                   //
                   InitializeComponent();
 
                   //
                   // TODO: Add any constructor code 
                   // after InitializeComponent call
                   //
           }

Now create object of type AgentObjects.IAgentCtlCharacter and name this object speaker ,now at the load function write the following

private void Form1_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
           {
                   try
                   {                          
 
       //load the character  in the axAgent1 object -- 
      //axAgent1 can load more than one character
                    this.axAgent1.Characters.Load("Robby" , "robby.acs");   
 
      //give the speaker object the character to show it
                           this.speaker = this.axAgent1.Characters["robby"];
                           this.speaker.Show(0);
                   }
                   catch(FileNotFoundException)   //if the character not found
                   {
                           MessageBox.Show("Invalid charater location");
                   }
           }

In the speak button click function write the following code

private void speak_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
           {
                   if(this.talk.Text != "")
             this.speaker.Speak(this.talk.Text , null);
                   else 
                      this.speaker.Speak("what should i say", null);
           }

In the speaker objects you will find some useful function that help you to control the character such as :

//MoveTo( int x , int y , objectspeed speed);
//Play(string animation);   
// this function make the character to play some animation 
 //The possible animations that the character can play it are
/******************
RestPose, Wave, DontRecognize, Uncertain, Decline,Sad, 
StopListening, GetAttention, GetAttentionReturn,Blink, Idle3_2, 
Surprised,Congratulate_2,Reading,Announce,Read ,ReadReturn,Idle2_2  ,
Writing ,Write ,WriteReturn ,Congratulate ,Confused ,Suggest ,MoveRight, 
MoveLeft,Idle2_1,  MoveUp, MoveDown, 
StartListening, WriteContinued, DoMagic1, 
DoMagic2,Idle1_1,  LookDown, LookDownBlink, LookDownReturn, LookLeft, 
LookLeftBlink, LookLeftReturn,Idle1_3,  LookRight, LookRightBlink, 
LookRightReturn, LookUp, LookUpBlink,LookUpReturn,Idle1_2,
ReadContinued, Pleased, GetAttentionContinued, Process, Search, 
Think,Idle1_4,Greet,Idle3_1,GestureUp,GestureDown,GestureLeft,
GestureRight,Show,Hide,Hearing_4,Hearing_1,Hearing_2,Hearin,
Alert,Explain,Processing,Thinking,Searching,Acknowledge
*********************/

The full code

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Collections;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Data;
using System.IO;
 
namespace WindowsApplication1
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Summary description for Form1.
    /// </summary>
    public class Form1 : System.Windows.Forms.Form
    {
           private AxAgentObjects.AxAgent axAgent1;
           private AgentObjects.IAgentCtlCharacter speaker;
           private System.Windows.Forms.Button speak;
           private System.Windows.Forms.RichTextBox talk;
           /// <summary>
           /// Required designer variable.
           /// </summary>
        private System.ComponentModel.Container components = null;
 
           public Form1()
           {
                   //
                   // Required for Windows Form Designer support
                   //
                   InitializeComponent();
 
                   //
                   // TODO: Add any constructor code after 
                   // InitializeComponent call
                   //
           }
 
        /// <summary>
           /// Clean up any resources being used.
           /// </summary>
           protected override void Dispose( bool disposing )
           {
                   if( disposing )
                   {
                           if (components != null) 
                           {
                                  components.Dispose();
                           }
                   }
                   base.Dispose( disposing );
           }
 
           #region Windows Form Designer generated code
           /// <summary>
           /// Required method for Designer support - do not modify
           /// the contents of this method with the code editor.
           /// </summary>
           private void InitializeComponent()
           {
                   System.Resources.ResourceManager resources = 
              new System.Resources.ResourceManager(typeof(Form1));
                   this.axAgent1 = new AxAgentObjects.AxAgent();
                   this.speak = new System.Windows.Forms.Button();
                   this.talk = new System.Windows.Forms.RichTextBox();
         ((System.ComponentModel.ISupportInitialize)
                 (this.axAgent1)).BeginInit();
                   this.SuspendLayout();
                   // 
                   // axAgent1
                   // 
                   this.axAgent1.Enabled = true;
                   this.axAgent1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(0, 232);
                   this.axAgent1.Name = "axAgent1";
                   this.axAgent1.OcxState = 
                       ((System.Windows.Forms.AxHost.State)
                        (resources.GetObject("axAgent1.OcxState")));
                   this.axAgent1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(32, 32);
                   this.axAgent1.TabIndex = 0;
                   // 
                   // speak
                   // 
                   this.speak.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(192, 176);
                   this.speak.Name = "speak";
                   this.speak.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(168, 48);
                   this.speak.TabIndex = 1;
                   this.speak.Text = "speak";
                   this.speak.Click += 
                     new System.EventHandler(this.speak_Click);
                   // 
                   // talk
                   // 
                   this.talk.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(24, 24);
                   this.talk.Name = "talk";
                   this.talk.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(328, 136);
                   this.talk.TabIndex = 2;
                   this.talk.Text = "";
                   // 
                   // Form1
                   // 
                   this.AutoScaleBaseSize = new System.Drawing.Size(5, 13);
                   this.ClientSize = new System.Drawing.Size(376, 270);
                   this.Controls.AddRange(new System.Windows.Forms.Control[] {
                         this.talk,
                         this.speak,
                         this.axAgent1});
                   this.Name = "Form1";
                   this.Text = "Form1";
                   this.Load += new System.EventHandler(this.Form1_Load);
                   ((System.ComponentModel.ISupportInitialize)
                         (this.axAgent1)).EndInit();
                   this.ResumeLayout(false);
 
           }
           #endregion
 
           /// <summary>
           /// The main entry point for the application.
           /// </summary>
           [STAThread]
           static void Main() 
           {
                   Application.Run(new Form1());
           }
 
           private void Form1_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
           {
                   try
                   {                          
                    this.axAgent1.Characters.Load("Robby" , "robby.acs");    
//load the character  in the axAgent1 object  
// -- axAgent1 can load more than one character
 
                 this.speaker = this.axAgent1.Characters["robby"];     
                     //give the speaker object the character to show it
                           this.speaker.Show(0);
                   }
         catch(FileNotFoundException)   //if the charater not found  
                       // using IO 
                   {
                           MessageBox.Show("Invalid charater location");
                   }
           }
 
           private void speak_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
           {
                   if(this.talk.Text != "")
             this.speaker.Speak(this.talk.Text , null);
 
                   else 
                           this.speaker.Speak("what should i say", null);
 
           }
    }
}

Tip

You should download the TTS “text-to-speech ” engine on your computer to make the character talk. To download the engine see

• www.microsoft.com/products/msagent/downloads.htm